Monday, July 11, 2011

the last London lunch- GastroPub grub with Tapas at the Norolk Arms (7-7-11)

As I readied to return to the US, we met Will's family near King's Cross Station at one of London's most adorable new "gastro" pubs specializing in tapas. The Norfolk Arms is a pubby as it gets, but the food her has gone gastro (http://www.norfolkarms.co.uk). It was very hard to decide what to choose as we had a huge breakfast, but there were SO many choices. Samuel, alas, after the previous night's Michelin outing wanted only CHIPS or CRISPS. He barely touched the superbly seasoned PATATAS ALINADAS, although he did eat much of a plate of MANCHEGO Cheese drizzled with olive oil. The plates here run from about 2-9 pounds and the servings are much larger than we get at home.There were superbly cream TARAMOSALATA served with tasty fresh pitta (they spell it with two "t"s in the UK and pronounce it with a short "i" like pit-uh) and tasty BABAGANOUSH. The ARTICHOKE HEARTS were cooked just right, seasoned just right and had a small tang too. The BOQUERONES were perfectly boned and marinated anchovies-almost a dozen of them!At 3.50 (that's $5.65US today) the Scotch eggs are one of the best deals as they serve THREE monstrous egg halves coated and breaded and drizzled with whole grain mustard. YUM-the perfect English dish to say cheerio to the UK with. They have a large beer menu and many wines as well. I had a glass of EL MURO BLANCO Macabeo which was most refreshing as the temperatures dropped and the rain plummeted. It was our first really cold and wet day on the entire trip. Little did I know that in 11 hours I would be in 95 degree DC!Welcome home!